The Role of Community in Teachers’ Knowledge Development

Technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) provides a theoretical lens which attempts to identify the nature of knowledge required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching. While there have been hundreds of studies that have used TPACK to examine what teachers need to know about technology as part of their classroom practice, including the nationally funded teaching teachers for the future (TTF) project, there has been little research specifically on the processes that underpin this knowledge acquisition, especially relating to in-service secondary teachers. This paper describes TPACK and argues that academics have been calling for research into the processes of acquisition for over a quarter of a century. The paper then proposes how the situated learning theory of Communities of Practice may provide a more nuanced understanding of the factors influencing teachers’ TPACK acquisition through their socially mediated relationships with colleagues.